Kenneth creates resources to help other developers. He has created products to help people learn more about tools such as Python and Vim. He also created an app to help developers create and sell courses.
He works on Slip (and other projects) outside of his full-time job and family commitments.
A lot of his projects wouldn’t have been possible without previous ones. Consider this tweet:
Previously, he worked as a gas station attendant. He tweeted that this job was great for learning how to work under pressure. He also created a Twitter thread about the other jobs in his work history.
Projects
Slip
Slip is the easiest way to create and sell programming courses directly to your audience
Kenneth came up with the idea for Slip after launching Vim.so. He got excited about delivering the same experience to other developers.
He launched an email list for those interested in the idea in January. Within one day, he had 77 early access sign ups. He shared a graphic of his mailing list growth on January 22. By the end of January, he was at nearly 500 subscribers.
He launched the MVP on March 9, 2021. He got 7 paid users and generated $133 MRR on launch day.
The app passed $5k ARR on March 16. By March 24, he had hit $589 MRR.
vim.so
vim.so is a website that allows visitors to master vim quicker. It does this through interactive exercises in the browsers instead of text based tutorials.
Kenneth launched Vim.so on January 10. He got 24 customers by the end of the day.
He reached $1k in sales from over 100 customers on January 19th. Within 14 days, He made over $5k of revenue. By the end of January, he had sold $7686 worth of product. By February 8, he had earned $9361 in revenue.
On January 26, he raised the price by $10. Within 24 hours, he noticed that the conversion rate had gone up slightly.
Interesting facts
- He had a lot of support from the build in public community. Look at the responses to this tweet about hitting $500+ in one week.
- In January, he noticed that less than %50 of customers had logged in to complete lessons
- The difference between Twitter and Facebook feedback
- The products he used to create Vim.so
- The stack that allowed him to ship Vim.so in 3 days
Revenue Updates
Online Communities
Kenneth posted about vim.so in a Show Hacker News post. Within one day, he had earned $1830 from 122 new customers and had 18.k visitors to the site. He also had 132 early signups for Slip. 11 hours later, sales were starting to slow down. He calculated that the website drove drove over $2800 of sales.
In late January, he shared the website in r/programming. It helped drive $475 in sales that day, although the conversion rate was lower compared to average. The post did lead to some negativity. He posted a tweet contrasting a negative comment with his daily sales to show that the main feedback that matters is whether people buy your product.
Deliberate
Deliberate combines science-backed learning strategies with bite-sized lessons to make Python mastery less painful and more enjoyable.
Kenneth started working on Deliberate on October 1, 2020. Weeks later, he started a blog. He made $0.55 in affiliate commissions from his first two posts.
By October 28, he had 50 newsletter subscribers. He passed 100 subscribers on December 6. By December 16, he had 136 subscribers. He reached 200 sign ups just before January, 2021.
He launched the beta version of the app on January 1, 2021. Within the first hour, he had 12 sign ups. He had 32 users sign up on the first day. Deliberate had 49 users by the end of the weekend.
Interesting Facts
He got spikes in sign-ups when he posted more UI screenshots.
Use Pandas
Use Pandas is a collection of easy to use Python pandas recipes.
He launched the project in October, 2020. It was created with an evenings worth of work. He shared how he made it in this Twitter thread. The website was created to promote Deliberate python.
Within 1 week, he had 1787 unique visitors and 3697 total pageviews. After two weeks, he had over 2500 unique visitors.
He got almost 500 followers on Twitter during his first month (November, 2020.) That month, he also observed that his engagement rate for video has been way higher than text. 5 days later, he shared how his use of video had increased profile videos by over %47,000.
In January, 2021 he, hit over 1 million Twitter impressions for the first time.
Twitter Stats:
28 days leading to November 23.
Threads
- In January, 2021, Kenneth made $544 from his projects in the one week. He created a Twitter thread about what he learned.
- How to improve faster as a developer
Features
A six figure software engineer salary 3 years after learning to code
Long and winding road to programming. Music, Gas Station, Raspberry PI, Hackathons – Kenneth Cassel